Showing papers by "Robert M. Solow published in 1983"

U.S. Labor Markets: Imbalance, Wage Growth, and Productivity in the 1970s

Abstract: DURING THE 1970s there was a marked increase in both the turnover and perceived shortages in U.S. labor markets that were associated with a given rate of unemployment. In those years a given unemployment rate became linked with much faster wage growth and much slower productivity growth than it was before. This paper presents evidence that relates the apparent increasing difficulty employers have had in satisfying their labor demands at given rates of unemployment to the U.S. record of wage and productivity growth. Throughout he discussion the extent of labor turnover (measured in terms of discharge and quit rates for the manufacturing sector) and the degree of apparent shortages (reflected primarily in help-wanted advertising per employee) associated with particular unemployment rates are referred to as labor market imbalance. In the 1970s the average annual growth rate of the civilian labor force was much greater than it was in the preceding twenty years: 2.5 percent a year in the 1970s, 1.7 percent a year in the 1960s, and 1.1 percent a year in the 1950s. To put the rate for the 1970s in better perspective, one should include in the picture the forecasts of labor force growth by the

Teaching Economics in the 1980s.

Abstract: Solow examines the seeming disarray of the economics profession, particularly with regard to macroeconomics, and attempts to indicate why this should be the case. He concludes with a bit of advice and a brief list of objectives for the first course in economics.

Leif Johansen (1930-1982): A Memorial

Abstract: Leif Johansen's first published article appeared in 1952, when he was just 22 years old. It must have been an early student paper, because his first degree in economics dates from 1952. I have no way of knowing what sort of student he was, or when his teachers and contemporaries first recognized the extraordinary and rather special talent that he had. Others will no doubt report at first hand on those biographical details. He began to publish regularly in 1955, as a research assistant at The University of Oslo. An article in English appeared in 1956, but it was published in Ekonomisk Tidsskrift. I certainly did not know of its existence, and I doubt that it was much read outside the Scandinavian countries. I cannot remember whether I read his "Note on the Theory of Interindustrial Wage Differentials" in 1958. But of course he burst on the world of English-speaking economics in 1959 with the famous "Substitution versus Fixed Production Coefficients in the Theory of Economic Growth". I can easily remember what an exhilarating pleasure it was to read that article. (He sent me a copy of the manuscript and we corresponded before it appeared in Econometrica.) The idea and its execution were a particular delight to someone like me who was then working on the same set of problems. There was an additional source of excitement, however, the unmistakable experience of meeting a powerful, lively, and original mind. I do not suppose that it was obvious then that Norwegian economics had found a natural successor to Frisch and Haavelmo, someone who could carry on the great tradition at Oslo. But it must soon have become clear to everyone who read his work. So the sudden and unexpected death of Leif Johansen at the sadly early age of 52 is a tragedy not only for Norwegian economics but for economics everywhere. It is, nevertheless, a special and